A significant area of cardiovascular disease involves the build up of plaque inside arteries that feed blood to the muscles of the heart. These deposits can cause occlusions which reduce or interrupt blood flow through these arteries. Coronary artery bypass grafting is a surgical procedure that has been used to address occlusions by creating an alternative blood path that bypasses the occluded artery.
Before a bypass surgery is performed, a vessel needs to be harvested from a patient's body for use as a conduit in the bypass surgery. In endoscopic vessel harvesting (EVH) surgical procedures, a long slender cannula with a working lumen may be inserted inside a patient, and advanced into a tunnel next to the saphenous vein in the patient's leg, the radial artery in the patient's arm, or any other targeted vessel for grafting. A surgical tool housed at least partially within the working lumen of the cannula may be placed along the saphenous vein to dissect the vessel away from adjacent tissue, and to sever side-branch vessels along the course of the vessel to be harvested. The surgical tool may be configured to grasp a vessel, and may include one or more operative elements for cutting and/or sealing the vessel. While the surgical tool is used to operate on tissue, an endoscope may be used to view the procedure.
When performing vessel harvesting, sometimes it may be necessary to rotate the surgical tool relative to the cannula, thereby orienting the surgical tool to a desired position for grasping a side-branch vessel. In some cases, the cannula and the surgical tool may be coupled to separate handles such that rotation of the surgical tool relative to the cannula may be accomplished by holding one handle while rotating the other handle. However, Applicant of the subject application determines that such configuration may not be desirable, as it would require the user to use both hands to affect the rotation of the surgical tool.
Applicant of the subject application determines that it would be desirable to integrate the surgical tool and the cannula so that rotation of the surgical tool relative to the cannula may be accomplished using a single handle. Applicant also determines that it would be desirable for such a single handle of the vessel harvesting instrument to include a control that is easily locatable by the user, and that would allow rotation of the surgical tool to be accomplished efficiently.